sees all this array which is prefigured so strangely to Mr. King; and his comely young wife sees it and is ready for it; and the fat son at the supper table—­a living example of the good eating to be had here—­is serene, and has the air of being polite and knowing to a houseful.  This scrap of a child, with the aplomb of a man of fifty, wise beyond his fatness, imparts information to the travelers about the wine, speaks to the waiter with quiet authority, and makes these mature men feel like boys before the gravity of our perfect flower of American youth who has known no childhood.  This boy at least is no phantom; the landlord is real, and the waiters, and the food they bring.

“I suppose,” said Mr. King to his friend, “that we are opening the season.  Did you see anything outdoors?”

“Yes; a horseshoe-crab about a mile below here on the smooth sand, with a long dotted trail behind him, a couple of girls in a pony-cart who nearly drove over me, and a tall young lady with a red parasol, accompanied by a big black-and-white dog, walking rapidly, close to the edge of the sea, towards the sunset.  It’s just lovely, the silvery sweep of coast in this light.”

“It seems a refined sort of place in its outlines, and quietly respectable.  They tell me here that they don’t want the excursion crowds that overrun Atlantic City, but an Atlantic City man, whom I met at the pier, said that Cape May used to be the boss, but that Atlantic City had got the bulge on it now—­had thousands to the hundreds here.  To get the bulge seems a desirable thing in America, and I think we’d better see what a place is like that is popular, whether fashion recognizes it or not.”

The place lost nothing in the morning light, and it was a sparkling morning with a fresh breeze.  Nature, with its love of simple, sweeping lines, and its feeling for atmospheric effect, has done everything for the place, and bad taste has not quite spoiled it.  There is a sloping, shallow beach, very broad, of fine, hard sand, excellent for driving or for walking, extending unbroken three miles down to Cape May Point, which has hotels and cottages of its own, and lifesaving and signal stations.  Off to the west from this point is the long sand line to Cape Henlopen, fourteen miles away, and the Delaware shore.  At Cape May Point there is a little village of painted wood houses, mostly cottages to let, and a permanent population of a few hundred inhabitants.  From the pier one sees a mile and a half of hotels and cottages, fronting south, all flaming, tasteless, carpenter’s architecture, gay with paint.  The sea expanse is magnificent, and the sweep of beach is fortunately unencumbered, and vulgarized by no bath-houses or show-shanties.  The bath-houses are in front of the hotels and in their enclosures; then come the broad drive, and the sand beach, and the sea.  The line is broken below by the lighthouse and a point of land, whereon stands the elephant.  This elephant is not indigenous,